Videotape Shows Green Beret Accepting $2,700 For Weapons

A federal court jury watched Tuesday the videotaped image of an Army Green Beret sergeant delivering mines and hand grenades to an undercover agent and accepting $2,700 for the weapons.

The exchange took place in a Key West hotel room in August, but jurors in West Palm Beach also heard hours of tape-recorded conversations in which Master Sgt. Keith Anderson offered to supply explosives, bullets and other Army weapons in exchange for everything from cocaine to disc cameras for resale to soldiers.

``We`re into anything and everything, you know, to turn a dollar,`` Anderson boasted. ``Everybody`s making a buck all down the line.``

Anderson, 32, and Sgt. 1st Class Byron Carlisle, 43, are charged with stealing thousands of pounds of Army weapons from their base at Fort Bragg, N.C., and trying to sell them to government agents posing as international weapons merchants with links to South American drug dealers.

``We would operate on a commodity exchange. Say, I will give you so many grenades, and you give me a pound or so many of these (drugs),`` Anderson is heard to say on one tape.

Defense attorneys contend the two officers were set up by a government informant, a Green Beret captain who told them he was helping the CIA get weapons to U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua.

During the second day of the weapons trial, jurors saw a videotape of a meeting between Anderson and Frederick Gleffe, a special agent in the Miami office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Taped conversations that also include Carlisle are expected to be played today.

Jurors listened as Anderson described his ignorance of drugs and his interest in distributing small quantities only to raise cash for his other operations. Anderson said he tried to smoke marijuana once, but complained it tasted like ``field grass.``

Anderson told the undercover agent he dealt in televisions, videocassette recorders and even automobiles, but would need time to set up a network for the marijuana and cocaine offered by Gleffe.

``I`ve got no way to get rid of it. I got to find the guy that`s big enough here to do something with it,`` Anderson said in one conversation secretly recorded by government agents.``There`s plenty of little people, and they`re begging for it, and there is a shortage around here.``

Anderson touted Claymore mines -- plastic explosives that hurl 180 metal balls in several directions -- as the best way for drug dealers to protect their supplies.

``If you got a stash to protect, you`re talking about big-time money, and you want to set up a mechanical ambush. A Claymore mine is one of the best means of mass destruction there is,`` he said.

``It doesn`t throw people. It mutilates people, because it`s made to cut steel. If every terrorist in the world can get ahold of (one), we`d all be in trouble.``